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Saturday, 9 July 2016

20mm Britannia WW2 German HQs

At the Gauntlet Bring and Buy, I picked up a couple of packs of Britannia infantry from Paul, another club member.

First up is the HQ group from Waffen SS pack SS22, representing the HQ of 12th SS Pz Div. I placed the three seated figures around a map table as a vignette, presumably they are trying to work out what the Canadians will do next as they start to move off Juno beach on D+1.

The two standing figures, one with Alsation/German Shepherd, I've mounted individually.

The complete command group.

Then there was this pack of figures, an officer and two radio operators. I think these might be from pack SS1, but there is no photo on the Britannia web site to check.

Very nice figures, I shall be ordering more of this range from Britannia very soon now.

As we're past the half way point in the year, it's probably time to reflect on progress so far. I was very pleased to complete my 20mm Cold War British infantry, with a platoon plus of Royal Marines in berets, a company worth of infantry in helmets and enough infantry in red berets to convert regular infantry into Paras. I also have plenty of SAS/SBS troops ready for special missions. I've also got some opponents completed for them in the shape of a reinforced platoon of Argentine infantry who can double as cold weather NATO troops for Norway and Denmark. I've made a start of the Winter of 79 irregular forces, although still have quite a few to complete. All that took me from Christmas up to the big Crisis Point weekend game in April, where my British infantry, US Marines and Taliban all made it out of their boxes and on to the table.

Since April, the two world wars have been featuring heavily. I've had a massive project ongoing which involved rebasing my Jutland fleets - Ian Shaw and I had the crazy idea of replying it on the centenary anniversary at the end of May as a club weekend game. However, my fleets needed a revamp and we were sadly out of practice with any kind of naval gaming. Since then, I've rebased them all and they are now on magnetic bases, safely stored in three A4 box files, and Ian and I have played out a couple of practice games on club evenings, using the fast play Jutland rules available from Tumbling Dice. So, once we develop a suitable way to manage the arrival of the fleets, we're good to go. Then, it seems we have decided tht next years Crisis Point game will still be set in our fictional Black Sea country o Andreivia, but we will be exploring the country's troubled past, looking at the turmoil of the aftermath of WW1 and the Russian Civil War. I'm building an Allied intervention force, which will include British infantry in pith helmets and tin hats, ANZACs, Indian Army gunners, Cossacks, Militias in Ottoman and Russian infantry, Whippet tanks, Austin- and Garford-Putilov armoured cars and stripped down light trucks for long range patrols. So far the ANZACs and Ottomans are done and British infantry in pith helmets and Cossacks are on the painting table.

Then I had the crazy idea of playing out some commando raid scenarios such as Operation Archery and the St Nazaire raid. So, I picked up some British commandos from Britannia, mid-war British infantry from SHQ and Kriegsmarine infantry from Britannia. Then a diversion when Richard Crawley suggested a Chain of Command game for Gauntlet involving WW2 German and Soviet winter troops, so I went mad investing in various plastic sets from Plastic Soldier, Pegasus and Italeri, most of which, bar some of the winter Soviets, are painted and ready to roll. I was so impressed with Chain of Command that I'm going to play a lot more and will add a platoon of German mountain troops (handy for the Vaagso raid too) and an SS platoon in camo smocks, because I like the figures.

So, I will probably add some more M48s for my 6mm Turks, ready for the megagame of Cold War Commander at Broughton in September, as well as working on some southern European terrain for the game. Then it will be carrying on with the WW1 and WW2 kit in 20mm. As an aside, I also picked up a shoe box full of Baccus 6mm ACW, which will slowly add to my ACW armies. Then of course there is the 6mm modern forces that I have been neglecting for a while such as the T-64 tank regiment I have planned for CWC, the 6mm West Germans for Team Yankee and the expansion of my 15mm Soviets for Team Yankee.

All this, of course, assumes that some other project/period doesn't muscle it's way in to my interests and divert me onto a new course.

Thanks Jack. Focus, what's that. My grasshopper mind leaps from one shiny thing to the next when it comes to wargames. I forgot to mention I'm also putting a toe in the water with Gung Ho from FoW, so could be island hopping soon too.

I've not checked out the Japanese, but my mate at the club has ordered a load through Peter Pig so he's already mustered his force for the Banzai book. Let me know if Peter Pig do them but you are having trouble sourcing them.

Yeah, the ones I have are from Peter Pig. Here in the States we get them via Brookhurst Hobbies, which is where all my PP is from. Normally they are absolutely fantastic, I receive them two days after ordering, but for some reason they've really screwed up this order...

Funnily enough, Richard P e-mailed me this morning to suggest a Vaagso style raid scenario to play at Gauntlet next year. I know he's been working on mountain troops and I have a platoon or so of Kriegsmarine infantry so with some classic Germans in jack boots (I know you have one or two of these), we'd have the defenders sorted. For the attackers I have some Britannia commandos and their SBS for the Mediterranean, plus some mid-war British infantry from SHQ, so if you also have Commandos and again I know you've got enough regular Brits, we'd have the attackers sorted. Maybe a naval landing party too? Ian is talking about scratch building some early infantry landing craft and we can always use some LCAs or LCMs from mod-war onwards. We'd probably have to scratch build any docks/harbour areas, but I don't fancy modelling Campbeltown.

About Me

My hobbies include geology, wargames, music (especially Rock and Blues) and reading. As I'm also a geologist by profession (clastic sedimentology to be precise), my hobby activities centre on wargaming, reading and listening to my I-pod, not always at the same time.